This past week I presented on the Providian Trust case where an old company had to install new technology. This, along with the class discussion on the case got me thinking about a few things. As someone who worked in the healthcare industry I can see where problems arose with the implementation of the new technology with the older employees. There were nurses and therapists who worked for our hospital who had been doing their job for a long time, and were very good at it, but did not use technology on a daily basis.
At one point it was decided that the therapists, and a few other areas, would stop filling out billing forms and giving them to the business office, where I worked, and would input the data themselves. In theory this was a good idea, but this was taking these people away from what they did best and dealing with a program that had problems of its own. Not surprisingly, several problems emerged, but the plan was eventually implemented and as far as I know, it was successful to an extent. I did hear that problems still arose though because these were people whose job has never involved a computer, and as far as I can tell, the core job will never be a computer based job.
So the question the is asked: "Is it always a good idea to add more technology to a job?" In both the hospital and at Providian I would say that there was a need for it. But was it the best thing to do? At Providian they obviously had problems that needed to be addressed, and it was felt that those problems could be fixed with technology. We never did find out the end result of the project at Providian, as there is nothing out there on the web about them other than the case study. But in the hospital, I would grade the implementation a success but would not have done it if I was in charge. In my opinion it is not always the best thing to take a person who has a good skill (such as nursing, therapy, etc.) and assume they can do anything and everything with technology as well as they do nursing. All we did was add another layer of stress to a job that is already stressful at times.
I think when you take someone out of their core competency within the work place problems can arise. Instead I think it is best for a company when you have people talented in different areas working together. Then everybody can be the most successful at their job. In our case at the hospital, we should have let the nurses and therapists continue to just fill out the paperwork and let the people who knew the billing program best, deal with it.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Facebook film
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7964012
Ten years ago we had the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley and now we have The Social Network. Each of these films tells the story of the rise of a new form of IT, personal computers in Pirates, and Facebook in Social Network. There are movies that are fantasy, they could happen in real life, but it is just something someone came up with, and there are historical movies, movies about historical events. An example of a "fantasy" it film is The Net, could theoretically happen but it did not.
Think about this, one hundred years from now, movies like Pirates of Silicon Valley and The Social Network, will tell the story how IT advanced from where it used to be to where it is in the future. Who knew the development of the PC and Facebook would be important enough that a studio would spend money on these films. I would imagine there may be another IT historical type movie in ten years, or maybe five with the rapid advances in IT we are now seeing. Anyone waiting for a movie about Google?
Ten years ago we had the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley and now we have The Social Network. Each of these films tells the story of the rise of a new form of IT, personal computers in Pirates, and Facebook in Social Network. There are movies that are fantasy, they could happen in real life, but it is just something someone came up with, and there are historical movies, movies about historical events. An example of a "fantasy" it film is The Net, could theoretically happen but it did not.
Think about this, one hundred years from now, movies like Pirates of Silicon Valley and The Social Network, will tell the story how IT advanced from where it used to be to where it is in the future. Who knew the development of the PC and Facebook would be important enough that a studio would spend money on these films. I would imagine there may be another IT historical type movie in ten years, or maybe five with the rapid advances in IT we are now seeing. Anyone waiting for a movie about Google?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Will we need wires for the internet in 10 years?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/technology/13wifi.html?src=busln
It could be sooner than 10 years. The FCC may open the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum that were left open by the conversion to digital television to use as wireless internet networks. As this article explains it would open up many areas to wireless access and improve current access in other areas. Essentially as easy was it was to receive analog TV with rabbit ears, it may be just that easy to get internet access. We have seen the impact smart phones and the ability to work in a wireless environment has had on our world.
I would argue that just as land line phones have been replaced by cell phones, this has the potential to eliminate the need for wires to connect to the internet. But, just as some people have land lines for emergencies and such, I would think we would still have cable or fiber internet. It may make it faster with less use, or internet providers may choose to invest in wireless technologies instead. It will be interesting to see where this development heads.
It could be sooner than 10 years. The FCC may open the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum that were left open by the conversion to digital television to use as wireless internet networks. As this article explains it would open up many areas to wireless access and improve current access in other areas. Essentially as easy was it was to receive analog TV with rabbit ears, it may be just that easy to get internet access. We have seen the impact smart phones and the ability to work in a wireless environment has had on our world.
I would argue that just as land line phones have been replaced by cell phones, this has the potential to eliminate the need for wires to connect to the internet. But, just as some people have land lines for emergencies and such, I would think we would still have cable or fiber internet. It may make it faster with less use, or internet providers may choose to invest in wireless technologies instead. It will be interesting to see where this development heads.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Google, the www, and your privacy
Google seems to have gotten itself into some hot water over a new social networking tool and your Internet privacy (if there even is such a thing).
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20015620-265.html
Google is settling for $8.5 million with a consumer advocacy group over this new service. It seems the biggest problem was users public profile included their most frequented email address that they emailed. Illeagal activity or not, I would not want someone knowing who I am emailing and how frequently. I, like most people, want to keep my emails and contacts private. Of course that privacy goes out the window if someone hits the forward button, but you typically know if the person you are emailing would do that, or do you?
In today's world sharing information is incredibly easy, you can do so without even knowing it. So what responsibility do companies that operate on web, and most companies do, have in regards to user security? What laws can be passed to provide user security? Can any be passed? It is the world wide web, and don't tell me the United Nations has any authority.
It comes down to three areas and questions for these areas: 1.) the user, do you know what the various websites are collecting about you and what they are doing with that info? What are the privacy settings on the various social media sites, and what is the default setting? 2.) What about the company, what responsibility do they have to the users of their site, if any? Are they willing to take a risk on negative publicity? Do they NEED the users info for business? 3.) What what about government and regulatory entities? What responsibility do they have to the public? Can they control the web? Who has the authority? Its questions like these and many others that are only beginning to emerge that we could not have thought about ten years ago, and they will get more questions, bigger questions, and more complex questions.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20015620-265.html
Google is settling for $8.5 million with a consumer advocacy group over this new service. It seems the biggest problem was users public profile included their most frequented email address that they emailed. Illeagal activity or not, I would not want someone knowing who I am emailing and how frequently. I, like most people, want to keep my emails and contacts private. Of course that privacy goes out the window if someone hits the forward button, but you typically know if the person you are emailing would do that, or do you?
In today's world sharing information is incredibly easy, you can do so without even knowing it. So what responsibility do companies that operate on web, and most companies do, have in regards to user security? What laws can be passed to provide user security? Can any be passed? It is the world wide web, and don't tell me the United Nations has any authority.
It comes down to three areas and questions for these areas: 1.) the user, do you know what the various websites are collecting about you and what they are doing with that info? What are the privacy settings on the various social media sites, and what is the default setting? 2.) What about the company, what responsibility do they have to the users of their site, if any? Are they willing to take a risk on negative publicity? Do they NEED the users info for business? 3.) What what about government and regulatory entities? What responsibility do they have to the public? Can they control the web? Who has the authority? Its questions like these and many others that are only beginning to emerge that we could not have thought about ten years ago, and they will get more questions, bigger questions, and more complex questions.
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